"I told you to stop following me! You're acting like a damn lapdog!" The slap echoed with a hollow sound, and his head snapped to the side from the force of the blow. The sting on his cheek hit almost instantly, but the physical pain was nothing compared to the confusion flooding his mind in that moment.
In front of him stood a young girl—no older than twelve, with long hair cascading around her furious face. Her eyes reflected a mix of anger and something else... was it disdain? Fear? Sadness? He couldn't quite tell.
Her delicate face was twisted into a grimace that, despite everything, couldn't entirely erase her youthful beauty. She was yelling, of course, but somehow that deafening noise couldn't fully penetrate the fog of his confusion.
What was happening? His skull throbbed painfully, as if invisible hands were squeezing it with the force of a hydraulic press, preventing his thoughts from organizing themselves. He raised a hand, slowly, almost hesitantly, to his cheek. The sting was real. The slap had been real. And the barking of this girl was also real, almost tangible... and it was starting to annoy him.
"Alright... I get it. I'll leave you alone," he murmured, but when the words left his mouth, they sounded strange, foreign. It wasn't the language he was used to, yet he understood perfectly what he was saying. A cold shiver ran down his spine, as if something inside him was not right, something out of place, out of order, and definitely outside his comfort zone.
The girl's reaction was immediate; her eyes widened, and she looked surprised, maybe even scared, which only deepened the pit of his bewilderment. "Do you mean that?" she asked, her voice now trembling slightly, as if she couldn't believe what she'd just heard.
What the hell? he thought. Hadn't she been the one demanding he leave her alone? Why, then, the sudden, absurd change of attitude? And, more importantly, why did everything coming out of his mouth sound unrecognizable, yet perfectly understandable?
The pressure in his head intensified, a deep pain that was becoming unbearable. The urge to clench his teeth grew alongside the pain, but what really grated on his nerves was the unbearable noise this girl was making. Every word, every raised tone of her voice, felt like a knife stabbing into his temples.
"I don't want to deal with this right now, not like this," he thought, clinging to that single thread of coherence in the storm that was his current mind. It was ridiculous, even degrading. The entire scene was. "Yes, now leave," he said, louder this time, making sure he was heard clearly. He raised his hand and made a shooing motion, as if she were an annoying little dog. "Shoo-shoo, now stop bothering me."
To his own astonishment, his actions bewildered him even more. What the hell was he doing, stooping to argue with a child? It was too much, even for him.
The girl in front of him, the same one who had mercilessly slapped him moments ago, now looked... sick? Her face twisted into a strange expression, as if she had bitten into something sour or as if something was deeply disturbing her.
Despite everything, the pain in his head was reason enough to want to end this absurd exchange, so if she wouldn't leave, then he would. He turned abruptly, determined to leave her behind. He didn't care in the slightest if she yelled at him again, or even if...
"W-wait," her voice reached him, fragile, almost desperate, and that surprised him. There was something in that tone, in that plea, that made him pause for a moment. But why? Why did he stop? And why did his chest sink with such evident frustration at that instant?
He didn't understand, nor did he want to. He just wanted to close his eyes and wake up from this nightmare.
The cold wind slapped his face, and that was when he noticed, when he realized... Had the air always been this crisp? He asked himself that, and something inside him shifted abruptly. He raised his hand, as if trying to make sense of something that didn't add up, and then he felt it: a tear. He was crying, for no apparent reason. The wetness on his face unsettled him, making him lose the fragile grip on reality he was trying so desperately to hold onto.
He looked down, and for a moment, it seemed like the ground was tilting toward him. Had the ground always been this close? Questions flooded his mind like an unstoppable torrent, but none could find an answer. Not in that moment, not in that situation. The headache was now a deafening roar, and his body was no longer responding. His strength abandoned him, and with a final, ragged breath, he fell.
His body collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut, and darkness engulfed him, deep, impenetrable, and infinite.
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"The stars do not shine over this kingdom on a whim; each one is the echo of a hero who never returned."
—Excerpt from The Reborn Hero, Volume 1.
When his eyes opened, the first thing he felt was… a mixture of familiarity and strangeness. It was like waking up from a long dream, or perhaps like shaking off a dreadful hangover after a long night of drinks and regrets with friends.
He genuinely expected to find himself back in his small, messy apartment, tangled in wrinkled sheets, with the hum of morning traffic filtering through the windows. The dream he'd had was strange enough to occupy his mind all morning. But what greeted him was something entirely different.
Warm sunlight flooded the room, revealing a pristine, almost majestic space. He lay on a bed more comfortable than any he could remember, wrapped in sheets as soft as silk.
Around him, the furniture looked as though it belonged to a past era that still held some reminder of the present, like something out of a fantasy novel he'd once read and then forgotten. The tall windows allowed sunlight to pour in, casting a near-celestial glow on the lace curtains. There was a quietness in the air, a calmness that starkly contrasted with the whirlwind of thoughts beginning to form in his mind.
In front of him stood a woman, watching him. Her beauty was dazzling... almost ethereal, with an air of serenity seemingly unbothered by worldly concerns. She wore a nurse's uniform, but not a modern one; it looked like something straight out of an early 20th-century portrait. Her deep blue eyes, full of calm, met his, and for a moment, he felt inclined to ask for her number, though something about the situation told him it wouldn't be appropriate.
"Brián... I'm glad you're alright; fortunately, it was just a serious case of mana exhaustion," she said softly, in a dialect he didn't fully recognize, yet one that he strangely understood without difficulty.
Brián. The name echoed in his skull, but he found no trace of it in his memories. So, who the hell was Brián?
His first instinct was to shield his eyes with his arm; the sunlight felt unnaturally intense, too bright for his liking. As he did, he noticed something strange about his hand—it wasn't the rough, calloused hand he was used to but a much softer, more youthful one. A chill ran down his spine.
He wanted to believe he was still dreaming, that all of this was part of some mental game his subconscious had devised, but everything felt so…
The woman moved then, breaking his chain of thought. She walked over to a small table beside the bed and returned with a glass vial filled with a glowing blue liquid.
"This will make you feel better for the rest of the day," she said, uncorking the vial with practiced grace and offering it to him with a soft smile. "Now... drink it quickly."
His gaze fixed on her, he realized there was no other choice. He took the vial and, after a moment of hesitation, drank its contents. The liquid was surprisingly sweet but had a metallic aftertaste, almost as if he were drinking pure energy. He swallowed it quickly, wincing at the taste he tried to mask. He didn't want to appear rude, especially to a woman who seemed so assured in her actions.
"In five minutes, you'll be able to get up and leave," the nurse in the antique uniform added, her voice calm as ever, a trait that seemed to define her. "You fainted from mana exhaustion, but with good rest for the rest of the day, you'll be fine. And absolutely no physical activity, Brián."
That cursed name again. He raised his hand to his head, grateful that the pain had faded, but the confusion remained, pounding like a relentless wave. He glanced around once more, searching for something familiar, but all he found was the same opulence in the room, a luxury he wasn't used to seeing, not even in the movies.
The blonde woman observed him for another moment, as if assessing his state, then nodded to herself and left the grand room, leaving him alone. He took a deep breath, trying to calm down, but his mind was still a storm of questions. One stood out above the rest: Who the hell was Brián?
Slowly, he sat up, carefully easing himself to the edge of the bed. His legs felt strange, as if his body wasn't entirely his own. Then, a strand of hair fell across his face. He brushed it aside automatically but then stopped. Green hair. His breathing hitched for a moment. He took another strand and examined it. Long, silky, and a shade of aquamarine. He looked at his hands again, more closely this time, and there it was, the confirmation that something was terribly wrong—they were small, delicate, and most alarmingly… unlike his own.
With his heart pounding, he jumped out of bed, stumbling slightly, as if his legs weren't accustomed to bearing his weight. This can't be real. He moved toward a door he assumed led to a bathroom, and when he stepped inside, he came face-to-face with a mirror that nearly knocked him backward.
The reflection wasn't his own. The bewildered face staring back at him didn't belong to the twenty-year-old man he knew but to a boy no older than twelve, with a sharp face and intense green eyes that matched the hair falling in soft waves over his forehead. His mouth fell open in disbelief.
"No... this can't be…" he whispered, touching his face with trembling hands.
But the mirror didn't lie, and his senses weren't deceiving him. Panic began to settle in his chest, climbing from his stomach to his throat. His heart raced as his eyes remained fixed on the reflection. It was a body he didn't recognize, an identity that wasn't his own.
Then, in a desperate act, he punched the mirror with a clenched fist. The glass shattered with a sharp crack, and blood began to flow from his knuckles, staining the sink and dripping to the floor, where his bare feet met the cold tile. But even that wasn't enough to wake him from whatever hell this was.
The bathroom door burst open, and the nurse entered with a look of alarm. She quickly approached him, ignoring the chaos he'd caused. Just as he raised his fist to strike the mirror again, disregarding the pain and the shards embedded in his hand, she grasped his wrist firmly, but with a surprising strength for a woman of her light build.
"Brián, please, calm down; you're only hurting yourself. You need to stop." Her voice was so steady, so full of understanding despite not knowing what was happening, a testament to her vast experience.
His breathing began to stabilize. But inside, the doubts remained. Who was he now? And what had happened to his real life?